Pulling X Ads Numbers via API Requires an Application — A Look at the Ads API Access Form
I run small paid campaigns on X (formerly Twitter) for a service I operate on my own, and I had been copying the numbers out of the Ads Manager UI by hand every time. Looking into pulling them via API instead, I found that the X Ads API is a separate, approval-gated program from the regular X API, and using it requires an application. I had assumed API keys were enough, so this caught me off guard.
The form is behind a login, and you cannot tell what it asks for ahead of time. Here is the screen as of September 2026, along with what I put in each field.

